by Tyler, Penny
The exit leads to a stretch of white walled hallway that we continue down until reaching a second door, which is opened for me. The men do not follow me inside, but instead motion towards an empty chair in the middle of an otherwise empty room for me to sit at. The walls are cement, save for one, which appears to be one-way glass.
“Have a seat Ms. Evans.” One of the large men says.
“The pit boss will be in shortly to speak with you.”
I nod and take a seat in the chair as the men leave, locking the door behind them. It’s only now that I realize how much trouble I might be in, but without knowing exactly what kind, or why, I still somehow refrain from panicking. My senses are numb with heartbreak.
It’s not long before the door opens up and a man steps inside, his face long and fearsome and his eyes set deep like dark, black pools.
“Hello Mandi.” He says. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
I smile as pleasantly as I can. “Of course.”
“I’m Randall Torrance, the pit boss here at The Grand Mayan casino.” The man explains, standing before me menacingly as I look up from my seat in the chair. “It looks like you’ve been enjoying your stay.”
“How do you mean?” I ask.
“Well, we have camera’s everywhere. You know this, right?” He counters.
“So?”
“First of all, we don’t allow that kind of activity in our restrooms.” Randall tells me with a slight scoff. “But, what really caught my eye was the… shape shifting.”
I try to play dumb and give him an awkward laugh, “What?”
“Listen, we have everything on high definition video.” Randall tells me. “I watched it myself about ten times before we approached you, but it’s there.”
My heart is now pounding out of my chest and I’m kicking myself for letting this get so out of control. It was one thing for my secret to be contained, but now it’s getting out into the world and, at this point, the consequences are beyond prediction. There’s no stopping it now.
“Are you aware that you’re wanted by the FBI?” Randall asks me.
I shake my head. “No, what for?”
Randall pulls a sheet of paper out of the inside pocket of his finely tailored jacket and unfolds it, reading aloud. “Theft of government property and treason.”
“Shit.” I instinctively mumble aloud, realizing what this means.
Detectives Kellogg and Peek have gone back over the footage from Allencorp and confirmed that I was lying, and now I’ve become a threat to national security.
“According to the information that we’ve gathered, it would appear that you’ve pissed off somebody at Allencorp enough to get the feds involved.” Randall tells me, confirming my suspicions. “You took your Vegas vacation at the right time but, unfortunately, changing shape like that isn’t a good way of laying low.”
“Please.” I counter. “You don’t understand, it’s not my fault.”
Randall smirks. “Who’s fault it is is none of my business.” He tells me. “Keeping this casino running is my business and, despite my fascination with your apparent ability, criminals like yourself are not welcome here. There’s no telling how much havok you could cause it a poker tournament with a skill like that. The police are on their way.”
I start to protest, to beg him for my release, but at this point I’m not even sure if it matters anymore. Maybe a cold hard cell is exactly what I need, having lost control of myself to the point where I’m hurting those closest to me, extinguishing the potential for love before it even starts. I’m exhausted, tired of running and hiding.
“Okay.” I finally say. “That’s probably for the best.”
Randall nods. “Good.”
It takes only a few seconds for my leg to start shaking, trembling as though an earthquake is coursing through the chair below me. I reach down and try to hold myself still but before I know it the strange sensation is pulsing through my arm and then suddenly my entire body is trembling. Unsure of what’s happening I look back over my shoulder at the one way glass behind me, which shows off my distorted and shifting face in its reflection.
My transition between personalities is no longer within my control.
“Oh fuck,” I manage to stammer.
The next thing I know, I’m completely naked in the chair and my body is no longer my own, but that of Alison Hyde.
Randall is completely awestruck by both my incredible transformation and my equally incredible body. His mouth hangs agape, eyes firmly drawn down towards my massive breasts.
“You gonna keep staring like that or are you gonna be a man and touch them?” I ask in a voice that’s not my own.
Randall looks conflicted, a professional torn between his job and his hardwired sexual compulsion.
Trapped within the body of Alison Hyde, I suddenly realize that if I don’t defend myself against capture then she will. We share one another’s cellular structure, taking turns as we rent out the being that was once solely my own, but with sharing comes a commitment to preservation. At least, until I can find a means of shutting her down for good.
“Put your clothes back on.” Randall says, slowly and carefully, as if forcing the words from his mouth.
“They seem to have disappeared.” Alison says with a giggle. “What? You don’t like looking at this body?”
Randall doesn’t say anything, but he wears his internal conflict clearly across his face, an expression so powerful it almost appears to be painful.
Alison spreads our legs open, revealing the gorgeous, wet pussy within. “You don’t like me?” She coos.
Randall shakes his head. “Stop.”
“Would you prefer a redhead?” Alison asks, immediately shifting our hair color to a dark auburn. “Or a blonde?”
As our hair turns a beautiful golden blonde Randall’s eyes suddenly light up. “I think we have a winner!” Alison says. “Now get over here.”
Alison beckons towards Randall with our finger, coaxing the man to come closer and closer. Sure enough, even he is unable to resist the charms of such a perfectly shaped woman.
The man takes two steps towards us as we lift up our legs and hook them over either arm rest, completely spread open before him.
“Would you like to give it a lick?” Alison asks.
Randall nods and climbs down to the floor, now crawling towards us on his hands and knees. He looks up and grins feverishly, excited to dive in as his lips move closer. Alison places our hands on the back of his head and begins to pull Randall onto our aching slit when suddenly, she uses all of her force to propel him down onto the edge of the chair with a loud crack.
Randall immediately collapses onto the ground before us with a broken nose, or worse, completely unconscious as a small pool of blood starts to bloom across the concrete floor around him. We stand up and Alison looks directly at us in the reflection of the one way glass, then says to me, “Alright, I took care of the dirty work, now you get us out of here.”
Suddenly, I’m trembling again, unable to stop the transformation as I swiftly turn back into myself.
Almost immediately, I can hear shouting from behind the glass. Knowing that I only have a few seconds to react, I make a break for the door and then burst out into the long white hallway.
I wasn’t paying nearly enough attention coming in, so my first and most important question is to determine which way leads out. Looking up and down the hallway, it’s almost impossible to say, each of them appearing to me seemingly endless stretches of sterile corridor.
“Mandi!” I suddenly hear familiar voice shouting.
I turn to see Derek waving me towards him down the hallway to my left, while a group of security guards come barreling out of a doorway to my right.
I take off running towards Derek, who waits until I reach him and then begins to sprint along beside me as we make our way through the maze. Fortunately, he seems to know exactly where he’s going.
The next thing I know, we are plowing
through an exit door that leads to an alleyway behind the casino, where Derek’s car is waiting in what is surely not a legal space. We jump inside just as the security guards exit the casino behind us, but by the time they’ve reached the street we are already flying out across the asphalt at blinding speeds, Derek’s low riding vehicle tearing around the corner with a loud roar.
Moments later, we’re several blocks away, panting loudly as Derek and me catch our breath.
“Thank you.” I say, hardly able to get the words out. “Oh my god, thank you so much, Derek.”
Derek is still brooding, his eyes focused directly ahead through the windshield. “You’re welcome.”
“How’d you know where to find me?” I ask.
“I saw them take you away.” He explains. “And I followed them. Besides, the guts of these giant casinos are all pretty much the same, and I’ve seen my share of back rooms.” The light at our intersection turns green, but Derek doesn’t go anywhere. “Where to now?”
I’m suddenly hit with a moment of panic. “Do you have our stuff? Is my laptop in here?”
Derek nods. “I went up and grabbed it all from the room.”
I’m so happy to hear this that I reach out across the center console and wrap my arms around Derek, hugging him tight and giving him a kiss on the cheek.
He tries not to react, still upset with me, but I see the slightest hint of a smile flare up at the corner of his lips. A car honks behind us.
“Where to?” Derek repeats. “You destroyed my Vegas detox, so now it’s your call where we go to fix all of this.”
I pull out my phone and read aloud an address the cars navigation system. “1820 Desert Inn Rd.”
The cars computer whirs to life, calculating the fastest path to get us there.
“1820 Desert Inn Rd.” The car’s computer voice announces. “Crazy Larry’s Electronics.”
Derek glances over at me as he takes off across the intersection. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.” He says.
The best thing about a guy who’s seen the world, like Derek, is that he’s open to new ideas, even if those ideas sound utterly insane at first. This couldn’t be more apparent than when I finished explaining to him the way I’d been trapped in a chamber and, unwillingly, been exposed to these nanobots, giving life to a repressed and destructive side of my personality named Alison Hyde.
I suppose it’s easier after you see someone change their shape right before your very eyes, but what is even more astonishing than his belief is his forgiveness; Forgiveness for lying, forgiveness for destroying his prior relationship, and forgiveness for dragging him into this mess.
Of course, true unconditional forgiveness is hard, but it’s a little easier when you have a split personality to blame. Even I can’t be sure how much of these digressions were Alison and how much of them were caused by my own sick jealousy.
Derek and I do agree on one thing, however. That Alison Hyde needs to be shut down for good, before she hurts anyone else or causes me to be relegated to the inside of a test tube for the rest of my life.
As we fly through the desert I sit in the passenger seat of Derek’s powerful sports car, programming away at my laptop as we close in on our destination.
“So you think you can hack into the nanobots without all of your equipment from the lab?” Derek questions, the third time that he’s asked me this already.
“Hopefully,” I admit. “I mean, the hard part is getting them in there, controlling them is fairly easy, actually, because they are programmed to listen to the commands in my own brain.”
“So why can’t you just tell them to shut down yourself?” Derek asks.
“In a effort to keep the nanobot program from corrupting, which was a huge hurdle for us in the lab, we started coding in a self preservation algorithm.” I explain. “In other words, once the program has entered its host, it’s going to do everything that it can to stay alive.”
“Like artificial intelligence?” Derek asks.
“In a limited form, yes, although not enough for the program to become self aware.” I say. “It cannot take control of the host.”
Derek flashes me a skeptical look and I immediately realize what I’ve said.
“Looks like you should have kept things little more limited.” Derek tells me.
I nod. “Yeah, we should have.” In some ways I like this theory, that the terrible things I’ve been doing as Alison were actually products of intelligence within the program itself, and not a desperate explosion of my own pent up subconscious.
I feel a tiny bit of guilt lifted up off of my shoulders, but only slightly.
“So what do you need from this computer store?” Derek asks.
“Simple stuff, really.” I say. “Most of what I need is already right here as software on this computer. Other than that, it’s just going to take a router, a large external hard drive and a few specialty cables that will hopefully be in stock.”
“Sounds good.” Derek says, nodding. He looks over at me, the anger and disappointment finally fading from his eyes as I glance up from my computer screen and meet his gaze. “You’re gonna be okay.” He tells me.
His assurance hits me right in the heart, warming me to the core in a time when I need it the most. Unfortunately, all I can think to say in response is, “I’m sorry.”
Derek nods in understanding, then pulls out his coin with on hand and shoves it into its special slot in the dashboard. “Don’t mention it.” He responds.
I spot a small, desolate building coming into view in the distance. It looks as though it was once a gas station, now converted into a small, strange computer workshop on the edge of the Las Vegas county line. There’s nothing else for miles but open road and empty stretches of golden desert sand.
“There it is!” I shout excitedly.
We pull into the dusty parking lot and jump out immediately, jogging over to the front doors and ripping them open. A bell jingles loudly above my head as we step inside, apparently the only customers that have been on the premises in quite a while.
“Hello?” I call out, making my way deeper and deeper into the hallways cluttered with all kinds of strange, miscellaneous computer equipment.
There’s a bit of shuffling from the back room and then suddenly a small, gray haired man emerges, pushing his thick rimmed glasses up onto his nose.
“Crazy Larry?” I ask.
“Can I help you?” Comes his response, slightly bewildered by my excitement at his odd little shop.
“Yes.” I smile. “Handing him a list of parts that I’ll be needing.”
Crazy Larry nods. “I think we’ve got what you’re looking for.”
12
Larry has generously allowed me to spend most of the day programming out back, in a small fenced off portion of the shop that sits outside, open to the warm desert air but shaded by a small roof above. Out here, there are plenty of places to plug in and get to work, and after Derek greases him with a rather substantial hourly rate to let us toil here unhindered, Larry seems to be much more of a happy man than a crazy one.
Despite working as fast as I can to hack into the nanobot program, it’s sunset by the time I start making real progress. I created most of this code myself, from the ground up, so getting in there and messing around with it is as simple as I had expected, my only hindrance being the slightly dated amalgamation of equipment that I’m working with. Still, it gets the job done, and soon enough I find myself booting up all the gear for my first trial run, just as the sun begins to blossom purple over the distant mountain ranges.
“Derek!” I shout, calling him over from his seat across the patio, where he’s been deep in thought as he watches me work.
Derek stands up and walks over, curiously looking at the laptop screen before me, even though he has no idea what any of the scrolling lines of code mean.
“I think I’m ready.” I tell him. “I think this is it.”
Derek can tell that there’s something
strange in the way that I say this. “What is it?” He asks, immediately cutting to the chase. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I tell him, shaking my head and lying poorly despite my best efforts.
“Something’s wrong, and I know it.” Derek says, his intuition serving him well. “Tell me what’s happening.”
“Well,” I offer, cautiously. “I’m about to confirm the edit that I’ve just finished on the nanobot script, but I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen to me when I do it.”
“What do you mean? I thought you were just going to shut off all the little… robots.” Derek questions.
“I am.” I explain. “But they’re part of my cellular structure now, they’ll always be there. My edit here will hopefully disable any of their shape changing functions, but there’s also the very strong chance that the nanobots will just shut off entirely.”
“What do you mean shut off enitrely?” Derek demands to know, his unease completely showing through now. “Is that dangerous?”
I hesitate for a moment, not wanting to tell him but quickly realizing that it’s the only fair thing to do. “Meaning that when I press enter on this keyboard I could be killed instantly.”
Derek closes his eyes, not wanting to deal with the severity of this situation but also realizing, to his credit, that there are really no other options. If I don’t’ do this then I’ll cease to exist anyway, completely consumed by the personality of Alison Hyde. “Mandi.” Is all that Derek can manage to say, “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I know.” I tell him, “I’m so sorry, but this is the only way.”
Derek takes me into his arms and holds me tight, his warmth coursing through me and putting me immediately at ease. There’s a magic that moves between us, one that I first recognized that night we spent together at the diner, but I now know had been there all along since the very beginning.
